Oxytocin creates bonds between soldiers
Monday, June 14th, 2010Oxytocin, a hormone linked almost exclusively to women and mothers, was recently shown to affect men in the same way – to make them more emphatic with others and to be more social. A new study this week has again shown similar findings regarding oxytocin’s effect on men, but this time the study also showed a less cuddly side to oxytocin – the hormone enables soldiers in battle to be more defensive of their comrades and more aggressive and hostile to the ‘enemy’.
Scientists conducted game experiments in which teams of volunteers made decisions that had financial impacts on themselves, their fellow group members, and competing groups. They found that participants who received a dose of oxytocin, administered with a nasal spray, behaved more charitably towards members of their own group.
At the same time, they displayed more “defensive aggression” towards outsiders.
Members of a competing group were pre-emptively punished when their own group was in danger of suffering a heavy financial loss.
“The important message here is that oxytocin is not just promoting generosity and benevolence and trust,” lead researcher Dr Carsten de Dreu, from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands told the journal Science, which published the findings. “It’s a double-edged sword.”
US expert Dr Holly Arrow, from the University of Oregon at Eugene, who has studied the psychology of war, believes the findings may be relevant to soldiers in battle. She pointed out that in the context of war, harming others to protect one’s own group could be considered heroic.
“Oxytocin is perhaps an important pathway that bonds men together and makes them ready to defend the group,” said Dr Arrow.
The findings also suggest why high powered business men are buying oxytocin spray in the form of VeroLab’s Liquid Trust in order to get ahead in their careers – the oxytocin contained within the spray enables work colleagues to see the wearer as being ‘one of the team’.
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